The Big Questions of the Week...Including: Will Palin Become The Next Eagleton?

[Lunar]

Why did McCain allow his political team to veto his preference and essentially pick somebody who was not his first, or even second, choice?

Logical Question #1:  Do you think that Biden was Obama's first, or possibly even second choice?  I think it's pretty obvious that Obama wanted Kaine.

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C'mon, McCain's inner circle made their decision.  We don't know how they made this decision.

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It's possible they made the decision too quickly and trusted Palin at her word on various things but are now trying to cover all their bases for future arguments.

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She would have never accepted the offer if she wasn't.  I never thought she was eligible because of the need to take care of her new child. 

I mean, she can spin in that running for vice-president will have a huge positive impact on her kids lives.  But that's spin.  The gal has political ambition.

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She hasn't been around long enough to get skeletons, silly question.  I fully expect a gaffe or two showing her lack of knowledge about foreign affairs, but she is pretty clean.  McCain is doing a dump of all her negatives during the hurricane (husband's DUI, her daughter's pregnancy, etc.). 

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That's the most ridiculous partisan question asked in some time.  Her impact isn't even measured yet and yet you are declaring that he screwed up his decision?

Dude.

C'mon, you need to get in touch with reality.  There are many advantages of a Palin pick.  Obviously it is the most risky pick since Ferraro, but that doesn't make it a mistake yet.  The very premise of a risky pick is that the advantages materialize later.  So far, Palin has survived the initial onslaught and all indications are that McCain's camp already knew of her child's pregnancy and her husband's DUI, so I don't get what your point is.

Dude.

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Weak.

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Weakest.  Ever.

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No way in hell, no way in hell, if in the outside chance that Palin is replaced, would a potentially controversial pick be there to fill the slaught?   Hell nah dawg, what are you smoking?

[Lunar]

Politico - crap, I made a lot of typos, for some reason my computer has been reduced to a crawl. I'm doing a virus scan after I finish uninstalling unused programs, but everything I type appears minutes after I press the keys, so I look hella silly, so to speak.

Let me see if I can get a response up tonight.  The premise of my idea is that I support Obama, I think Palin was an unwise pick, but I think you are taking things way too far.

[Lunar]

Logical Question #1:  Do you think that Biden was Obama's first, or possibly even second choice?  I think it's pretty obvious that Obama wanted Kaine.

There are no news reports, or anonymous quotes, indicating that Kaine, or anybody other than Biden, was Obama's first choice. There are, however, reports that McCain wanted Ridge or Lieberman, but was vetoed by his political team for whatever reason. Why did McCain allow his political team to pull his strings as if he were a puppet? I thought McCain was not like Bush in that he was his own man who called his own shots...

Who were the sources?  Anonymous?  You can't jump ahead twenty feet because an anonymous source said McCain's camp did this.

And I'm just asking a straight-up normal question.  Do you think Obama really wanted a guy who called him unfit to lead during the primaries, or the governor of Virginia and one of his earliest and most steadfast supporters from early 2007?  Do you think Obama personally likes to reward people who damage him or people who stick by him through the thick and thin.   Do you think Obama really wanted someone who supported the war in Iraq?

Obviously McCain and Obama both decided to appoint people in their VP vetting committees and decided to defer to their judgment on many aspects.  If McCain or Obama seriously wanted someone different, they could easily select him or her and fire the opposing adviser.

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They obviously made the decision without properly vetting her. What does that say about their decision-making skills? This was the most important decision to be made during this campaign, and they screwed it up...[/quote]

I don't deny that they might not have vetted her as intensely as most VP's, but nothing that has emerged thus far has been a surprise to them, by all indications.

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If they simply trusted the word of an ambitious politician, instead of getting to the source, then they all deserve to be fired.
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Same response.  People being vetted do not have much room for dishonesty.

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Yes, and her ambition is hurting the ticket and the Republicans' chances in November. Your family ought to come before your political ambitions.[/quote]

C'mon, all politicians hurt their family by campaigning, especially the younger ones.  It's unquestionable that Obama is doing this.

It's all a difference of degree, but you should attack all of them if you are doing this and not single out Palin.

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At this time, we have no idea if there are any sexual imbroglios of any sort in her past, or if there are other accusations of abuse of power as mayor and governor. The Republicans better hope there will not be more revelations in the week or two before Election Day - otherwise, they will lose big. What a risk![/quote]

You don't have any idea about anyone, but I'm pretty sure McCain's lawyers looked into this and did they best they could here.  Just because they didn't do EVERYTHING doesn't mean they did nothing, you miss this idea completely.  I mean, I can't say for sure that Palin doesn't have a sextape out there or anything, but I'm pretty positive she doesn't have anything sexy for muckrackers.

Just because you declare that we aren't sure about her past doesn't mean you have something to grab onto.  She seems like an upright, moral, religious individual and I really doubt you can dig up anything sexual on the gal.  Dawg, you are sooooo jumping to guilty until proven innocent it's ridiculous.
 

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The Troopergate indicates that she may not be pretty clean after all.[/quote]

I am not a Republican partisan, so I'm trying to mention both sides of every argument.  Troopergate doesn't have much traction, but the report is due the last week in October.

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Maybe there's another DUI story that was covered-up ala Bush circa 2000?

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What are you talking about?  Are you saying they released only half of the DUI stories?

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She's seriously hurting the ticket less than a week into the campaign. Her inexperience (There are THOUSANDS of mayors of towns of 9000 people or less) takes away McCain's tactic of going after Obama on experience. The fact that there are far better qualified candidates out there is rubbing people the wrong way; it looks like McCain is simply pandering to women, hoping they will vote for him simply because his running mate is a good-looking woman. That is quite insulting to many women, as anybody who has talked to regular voting women this past weekend can attest to.[/quote]

No evidence to support your claims that she is SERIOUSLY hurting the ticket.

I agree that she may damage the ticket in the future, but no way has she done anything yet.

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What are the many advantages of a Palin pick? She's a woman, so women are instantly more likely to vote for the ticket? Nonsense.

If there are advantages to this pick, do they seriously outweigh all of the negatives that have started to trickle out, with potentially more to come? And do any advantages make up for the simple fact that there are clearly MANY other candidates, including many women, who are far more qualified to be a heart beat away from the presidency? Let's not forget that McCain is 72 and has had three or four bouts with cancer (it's been so many times I've lost count)...[/quote]

You have a silly partisan perspective on everything sir.

She is a young, religious reformer from outside washington.  It's simply silly to declare whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages this early on.  You do a great job at pointing out many of the disadvantages that I agree with, but you ignore her benefits.  The grassroots of gun and god lovers love Palin.

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McCain's first and second choices were reportedly Lieberman and Ridge. Why would McCain allow his political team to veto his preference once again after this debacle?
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Because it's a FAR bigger deal to replace a VP than it is to select one.  If McCain replaces his VP, which could occur, he would be forced to go with a 'safe' choice like Pawlenty or Romney to minimize further controversies.  McCain cannot replace one defunct, controversial VP with a second controversial one, c'mon dawg.

[Lunar]

This thread, including the responses from both sides, is proof that Palin has at least violated the number one rule of every running mate: Do no harm to your ticket

Well, that is one of the primary rules.  You haven't conclusively proved any such thing though.

I think McCain should have went with Pawlenty, a more 'known' quantity.  McCains campaign obviously weighed their risks versus advantages, all dependent on their own abilities to control the message control to the mainsteam media and came up with Palin. Let's please wait a week before we start writing political tombstones.  Who are you an I to say that we are smarter than a presidential vetting team when the choice hasnt even really emerged yet?

[Lunar]

With the release of the pregnancy news during Gustav, I don't see any indication of this news story gaining traction.  The media seems too respectful to jump on this story while people are dying in a hurricane.

It's possible that word-of-mouth, peer-to-peer gossip could hurt Palin in various circles though.   That sort of lower grassroots damage is very difficult to pinpoint down into tangibles though.